512: Kamal Kamal and the Dream of Baba’s Pantry

0:28This episode is brought to you by Resi and American Express. I'm thinking of the example of my father and just like his constant will to push through and to work through any obstacle and take on any challenge. It's very inspiring. He has a very good work ethic.

0:47This is Taste. I'm your host, Eliza Barbanel.

0:59Kamal Kamal is a food collaborator and art director based in New York. He's a co-owner of Baba's Pantry, his family's beloved Palestinian restaurant in Kansas City, Missouri, a flourishing community space that has won fans and acclaim since opening in 2022. It's so special to have Kamal on the show to talk about his family's food traditions and plans for expansion.

1:28Kamal Kamal, this is Taze. Thank you for coming on the podcast. How has your day been going so far? What did you have for breakfast? Oh, okay. I had dumplings. I had steamed dumplings this morning. I love steamed dumplings as a breakfast food. I feel like I've been limiting myself, but I haven't done this before. I want to hear more about it. You should definitely have steamed dumplings as a breakfast. And anytime, honestly. They're amazing. No, I mean, just go to Chinatown. You get a big bag of dumplings for like$4. Stick them in the freezer and then like steam them for about 15 minutes. And then you have them with a cup of tea or a cup of coffee and you're good to go.

2:04I don't know why. Like to me, that's always like a lunch or like a late night kind of thing. Late night, lunchtime, morning time. Try to start your day with protein. Yeah. You can get mushroom ones, chicken ones. What did you have today? I had chicken and scallions. Nice. They were so good. Do you have it with like soup ever in the morning? Oh, yeah. I make miso a lot. I love that. I love miso. So I do a lot of miso. So you were just upstate recently, were you? Yeah, I was. How was it? It was great. Me and my friends decided to do a little retreat. It's kind of nice to ground yourself, especially living in the city.

2:36Yeah. We like to go outside and just be surrounded by nature, by trees and cook for each other, love on each other and just kind of like regroup and then head back into the city. Did you cook any fall meals when you were up there? I did. I did. I made this pasta that I love to make. I call it my like first date pasta. It's really simple. I get some like really wide noodle, pappardelle noodles. And then I just like saute them in garlic, anchovies, crushed chili pepper, a little bit of tomato paste. covered in parmesan cheese yeah obviously good anchovies good pasta good cheese and i love that super fast super quick you don't have to focus too much on it but really satiating just because it's like um i don't know it's just like very um savory and filling yeah so we're talking a little bit about food but i want to kind of take a step back and provide some context can you tell me a little bit about just how food fit into your life growing up like what kinds of things were you eating at home?

3:39Like, how did you relate to food? Well, I grew up mainly in Palestine. So in growing up, I lived with my grandparents. And my grandfather, Alay Al-Hamma, was blind. So we used to go to the market every day. And it was about a two, three mile walk, just to get into the market. But we would go every day because he would always check in with my grandmother about what was for lunch or what was for dinner. And she would give him a list of things to get. And then me and him, I would hold his hand and we would walk to the market. And so we were, I was like, every day I had to like interact with produce and different food and act as his eyes and a little bit of his ears.

4:27Although he was very self-sufficient, you know, he would ask me to pick the best tomatoes or the best onions. And also like just the banter and the exchange of like bartering and trading was like a big part of food. Yeah. So in that contact of like fresh produce, what was in season, like it just wasn't anything that was necessarily explained. It was just something that just kind of happened in life. I just kind of like naturally picked up and wasn't really made aware of these like concepts until I came to the States that like, oh, seasonal things or like, oh, like this is what ripe is. I was like, it just felt really natural and kind of easy.

5:09Yeah, because it was just everywhere. It was just everywhere. And then when did you come to the U.S.? In 2000, 2001, 2000. I would imagine you were encountering many different kinds of food experiences when you came here, even just like not going to the market or having a set price for what something should be. Things are expensive in the States, like astronomical. And you can't get a good deal. I mean, things are really expensive now, but they've always been like, wow, that's wild. Food here is really expensive. I think that there is an education that's missing in food, understanding the value of food, the cost of food.

5:52And because there's a misunderstanding of that, they can exploit people from food by, in one way, just raising prices that are just like, wow, that's really expensive. But I mean, America's a whole different world, so different context for everything. So, yeah. And when your family came to the United States, I first learned about your work because of your family restaurant. When did the restaurant kind of come into the picture? And whose dream was it? Oh, so my dad was always in the restaurant industry. My dad really, really was like a mama's boy. He loved his mom so much. My grandma, she was an amazing cook.

6:35And just like every day cooking, like every day making something. And I remember when she would visit us in the States when I was going to college. and she would stay up just to like make me like za 'atar and bread manais or toast or like an omelet or like something simple because I would like stay out and I would study be home like midnight or like one and she would like wake up and like make me a full like pot of tea and like just go at it or like she would fry some cheese for me um but she was just always like in the food and always like sharing that and no I'm pretty sure my dad was inspired by my grandmother because she was an amazing cook and um was always available and always like fed the family but she fed the extended family so it wasn't only the immediate family it was my cousins it was my aunts it was just anyone and everyone and was always down to have guests and people come over and I think that that really resonated with my father and it gave him um I think it just motivated him that's something he wanted to do with his life is just feed people and have that sense of community um so he's had many um like restaurants and cafes and products and iterations like it throughout kansas city missouri yeah so he's kind of known he's kind of like a local celebrity like he was making hummus in like like 2000 before it was even popular and it wasn't like you know like a um i don't know as popular as now or like as you wouldn't get it yeah a prepared case at the grocery store no no no but he was making it and he was sampling it and he had like you know this like bravery and guts to just like put this food out and be like you should try it this is amazing it's amazing and he got a lot of like um a lot of people started like following him and trying to to catch him at the grocery store sampling and like he was also like he's just very charming and interactive with people so i think that he really did um leave a mark on kind of the food scene in kansas city he had many restaurants and i think or the bubba's pantry the restaurant that we recently opened happened in 2022 so it was you know during covid and i always tell this story because it really it's like people ask like how does the restaurant happen or how things they never nothing ever really happens the way you think it would you know so like my dad calls me and he's like i'm gonna open another restaurant and it's like covid and of course we're being saturated by all this news about like businesses not doing well and the restaurant industry being the toughest industry to be in and you know it's a lot to take in and also the world is shut down but true to my dad's spirit and his beauty is that he was like well i'm gonna do what i'm gonna do and like it's gonna be fine you know um so i was like okay um dad like i don't know what to do like what can i he's like i just need some money i was like well i don't have a job yeah i don't know we're not we're not working no one's working and he's like okay okay you know it was very cool about it and i was like and i don't know if we should be opening a restaurant right now like is there anything else we could be doing like you know like maybe play it safe and he was like no no it's gonna be fine i'm gonna do it and i remember getting off the phone with him and kind of taking a deep breath and being like wow i just like didn't really offer him anything like i just he was like very hopeful and very like eager and open and had this like you know he wasn't going to succumb to anything he was just going to keep going and i was like oh but and he called me his oldest son and i really didn't have anything to offer him so i was just like wow um i started thinking about it more and i was like well i don't have money but maybe i can raise money maybe there's a way to do that and you know because I'm younger and more savvy with the internet and how things work.

10:49So I was like, okay, maybe I'll start GoFundMe. I mean, everyone was doing it, right, at that time. So I was very nervous. I think asking for money or putting yourself out there was a struggle for sure. But I had a lot of great support from friends. The community I had in New York was very supportive. And I'm like, yeah, why not? Of course. um so i just did it we just i just started a gofundme and it brought awareness to our project i had a con i called my dad and had a conversation with him i was just like look i'm you know about the conversation earlier i wasn't able to offer you anything but i think i can help out with like raising some money if you really want to do this but uh and as we started talking i was like but this time when you open this restaurant let's really like fall into the fact that we are Palestinian like let's make a Palestinian restaurant and previously he hadn't been using that word well I don't think he I think he came into America at a time like in the late 70s where it was much more about kind of like assimilating and you know I mean coming from from a war-torn country and then just like, you know, he was just trying to do better.

12:08So I don't think he never necessarily denied being ballast, that was never his thing. But, you know, he was quick to, I guess it was easy for him to settle with Mediterranean. Yeah. Like Mediterranean, you know, so he can go about his day. Yeah. You know, and get things done. And I like, I understand that. And, but I just like, no, this time let's just have a paliscean restaurant like let's do in my mind i realized that he's older now so like this might be his last restaurant you know and i thought like if i'm going to help him with this restaurant i want it to be a space where he feels comfortable in like where it's kind of exemplifies you know his history like the things that he likes and kind of put that all together I think he likes to collect things.

13:05He likes to, I sometimes think, over-decorate things. Maximalistic. Maximalistic to the fullest with plants and frames. So I was like, let's create a space that's reflective of that where he can fall in it. And I think if you, you know, create a space that matches the person that's operating in it, then everything just kind of bounces off each other and just amplifies. So I was like, OK. And, you know, he was like, yeah, of course. Why not? Like, didn't he was really open to it really quick. There was no pushback. He was like, yeah, of course. Let's do it. And we came up with a name. We're like, you know, it's based off of you.

13:45It's called a Bubba's Pantry. So why pantry versus like kitchen or something else? Because he makes so many things. He's constantly making things like pickled avocados, pickled asparagus, different like hot sauces, different dips. So we were just like, and he just has a very active, creative mind that's, you know, beautiful to witness and nothing can really encapsulate all of that genius. So a pantry made sense because you just have this, you know, this space full of different things that you can choose from. And it highlights how like homemade everything is in the restaurant itself. Yeah. And so we felt like that was it.

14:32And we would travel in and out of like, I mean, I lived in New York and Rhode Island and I would come home for like holidays and stuff and I would literally raid his pantry. So I would just grab things and take it with me and then share with my friends. Yeah. So like this was an opportunity to bring that all together. I love that. And it's also like a true family run restaurant. Your brother Omar is the other chef there. Yes. And had he cooked with your dad previously? Like, I mean, at home, obviously. You know, I can't say the way we came about with food. It was around us. Yeah. Constantly. So it was just a practice that existed within the family.

15:15No one necessarily like sat us down in the kitchen and be like, this is how you chop an onion or this is how you make a marinara or like none of that existed. It was like you just, you know, you were asked to do things like you were asked to bring this food. I remember one time my dad had company and it was time to make mint tea. that's the part of the visit where we're making mint tea. And he asked me to go into the garden and pick out mint tea. And, you know, I'm a kid and I just grab like some mint and I offer it to him and he's like, this is not enough mint. We have this many people. We need more mint.

15:57Go back there and like bring him. And that's how you learn. So then I realized like, okay, you need this much mint in order to make a good mint tea. More mint than you think. More mint than you think. So now when I make tea, I know you need more mint than you think. Yeah. To make a proper mint tea. So it's just an experience. Yeah. And just being around it. And then questions like if I lived in New York while I was living in New York, I would ask him like, oh, when you make, you know, the harira, like the soup, do you add the noodles before or after? or like small little things like that. And he's like, well, I do it this way and does it this way.

16:40You know, I've seen it done that way. It was very like that. Not a real answer, yeah. Not, yeah. So then you're like, whatever resonates with you. I want to ask you, so 2022 is when the restaurant opened and then that same year it was on the Bon Appetit Best New Restaurants list. Wow, yeah. I worked at Bon Appetit, not then, but previously. And when I worked there, I was always so interested in this question of like, what does it mean for a business to be recognized in that kind of way? I think we talk a lot about like hype and oversaturation and all of these things. So I'm curious for your family, for your restaurant, what did that mean to be recognized in that kind of way?

17:17And is there an impact that's still around today? Of course. Yeah. I mean, it was a big deal and it is a big deal being recognized like that, especially in like Kansas City, Missouri. You know, I don't know if There's that kind of recognition carried a lot of weight in that community. I think Kansas City is on the up and up. There's a lot of things being built and a lot of things happening in the city. So this, I think, really helped to kind of solidify the growth of Kansas City. It was nice, I mean, to get that kind of praise. It came completely out of nowhere. We never would have expected it, nor did we like necessarily that wasn't our goal, you know, was like to be in this magazine.

17:58But it happened and we were very appreciative of it. And I don't know, I think for our family, seeing our dad recognized in that way was a big deal. And I know it made him happy, which made us happy. So, yeah, and it really did change kind of the conversations of what we are doing as a restaurant, as a Palestinian restaurant, and what we really want to say because we have the eyes and the attention. And that was, I think for me, that was a lot of fun just to be able to expand our conversation. Yeah. And when you look at like Google reviews for the restaurant, I see reviews even today from people that say, I heard about this in Bon Appetit or maybe another publication.

18:43And I was in town or I was driving through and I wanted to go there. And I feel like it is really interesting to think about the half-life of something and how people can still find their way to you. Do you feel like there is a set community of people that go to Baba's Pantry on like a weekly basis? For sure. Yeah, for sure. For sure. There's a group of I mean, there's a lot of people from all over. I think obviously, yes, American Kansas City Americans come through, but there is also a lot of like med students that, you know, that are from like the Middle East or the Suwana area, Southeast Asia.

19:19and they come in looking for similar foods or foods that they might have family in Dubai or just have different connections outside of Kansas City. And they'll come to our restaurant and feel really happy to see Baba there, greeting them, cooking, and the vibe and energy that we've created in the atmosphere is very like welcoming and come as you are. And like, I think that that, yeah, I think that speaks to a lot of like other people in the diaspora. Yeah, I think that's a really interesting component of the restaurant to me is obviously the food itself is so amazing and comforting and familiar, but also you're kind of becoming this adopted Palestinian family for all these people that come through the doors.

20:11And especially in this moment, it's obviously like so difficult to be Palestinian. And I would imagine that there are people who feel very safe and at home and also people who maybe have never met a Palestinian person before. And like your food is their kind of gateway into that. Yeah, which is really what that that's the underlining. That's the goal really is to just like, yeah, we're we serve food and, you know, it's a way of, you know, sustaining our own family, sustaining our family overseas. but underneath it all we're really trying to let I mean having that firsthand experience with the Palestinian family with Palestinian food with cuisine I think it definitely does influence people's take on things like they have their first experience and they're having this food and they get to meet with the family then it doesn't look so distant or far away hopefully there's like a link within their own community that there are Palestinians who exist.

21:15And yeah, it makes them a little more aware and more careful in what they digest from the media, I think. So yeah, for sure. Yeah. And I know that you said that there's another project that your family is working on a bakery, right? Yes, we're working on a bakery right next door. So we have Bubba's pantry and then we have Bubba's bakery right next door. that's so exciting i'm so curious like what's going to be available at the bakery um that's when between my so i have two sisters that love to cook hannah and yasmin um they're i i would say that they're they really lean into baking more so they're very excited as well as my brother yeah my brother's also i kind of think that the three siblings i have are really into baking now that i think about it my dad loves to cook he really loves to cook but my sisters are definitely going to have a big hand and like what's on the menu and you know how things look and they have kids too so what they cook for their kids so I think this is a great extension my brother is super creative in the kitchen and I think he'll come up with some unique hybrids of foods I think being a Palestinian family, living in diaspora, there were a lot of ingredients and things that were not available to us.

22:40And we've seen become available throughout time, but not in 2000, you know, when we got back to the States. So there's a lot of adaptations of things that, you know, could work. They work. And you continue. you um but i think that that is sometimes i don't know like maybe could be looked down upon like it's not authentic or it's not this it's not that and it's like well within the context and the means that we have this is how we created it this is how we could um recreate what we what we know and miss or whatever but there's also creativity in that too and there's also beauty in that too so i think a lot of what we're saying with our food too is like embracing not only palestine diaspora but all diasporas you know um african diaspora asian diasporas like these communities are latino diaspora these communities of people who have to create with what they have and they can be beautiful things too right so we really embrace that in the pantry and in the bakery are there any like dishes in the pantry or the bakery that you think are really evocative of this kind of specific authenticity?

23:58So one of my dear friends, Bambi, he came out to Kansas City to help us open up the restaurants and do all these things. And we were constantly working and just eating on the go and grabbing whatever. And my dad makes these tortilla chips from scratch. And they're really really good yeah like double fried crunchy yeah they're so good and um he makes them and he makes it we make pita chips we make these tortilla chips and um it's i don't know where he got the idea of making tortilla chips they're just really good so um we have them available and we remember just putting them on a plate and then like dumping everything we had that we use for the shawarma sandwiches which is like olives um our spicy shot our yogurt sauce um pickled beets sumac onions um tomatoes and cucumbers just like all the things we would put on just putting it on top of these uh in-house made tortillas and they were delicious like palestinian nachos kind of yes We call them Bambi's nachos.

25:16Yeah. But like there's no cheese on them or anything like that. They're literally just like in-house tortilla chips. And we just like put everything that we put on the sandwiches onto the tortilla chips. And it is actually so good. I mean, I'm really into this idea. I do think everything is better with cheese. Like I don't know if there is like a feta or some kind of a dish. We could probably find some feta in the kitchen and put it on there. When I come through, maybe for me. But I feel like a chip is the perfect vehicle to be eating all of those things. So it makes a lot of sense. And it's so fun to eat.

25:44And it's, again, very communal. And yeah, so I think it's just like naturally candlesticks. Things like that. That was kind of like a bit of a hybrid. I'm curious what it feels like to be having so many projects to work on as a family. I feel like not all families would necessarily be inclined to work together or have it be a productive process. But it seems like a really interesting opportunity to be like building and preserving legacy as well. I think that there's like a deep rooted understanding in the importance of legacy, the importance of Palestinian food and how much of there's so much going on.

26:24And like, how do you act in resistance to an occupation? How do you act in resistance to a genocide? How do you act? And, and I think the, you know, our family, um, has a good understanding of like, this is a way, this is a way of like presenting yourself and continuing to create and make things from your culture that's rooted in history, that's rooted in ancestry that cannot be denied. So like standing on that, I think is, um, motivating, but also very nourishing. so it works both ways i think that like that's where we draw our strength from is understanding that this is food is saying more it's saying a lot more and impacting a lot more yeah and we carry that intention with the food so i think that's a bit of the extra spice or magic that kind of um gets us through and work together and on to the next yeah it seems really powerful and also exhausting at the same time.

27:23I hope that your family has some time for rest or something together. Oh, you know, I'm thinking of the example of my father and just like his constant will to push through and to work through any obstacle and take on any challenge. It's very inspiring. And, you know, and I, he has a very good work ethic. You know, he wakes up every day like 6am and like goes into the kitchen and like pumps things out like a monster, like a beast. And I'm just like, wow. So, you know, we take a lot of also motivation from him and inspiration from him. And to close today, I want to play a little like rapid fire taste check with you.

28:02Okay, let's do it. So I'll give you a category and you tell me just like the first answer that pops into your head. First answer. Okay, got it. Okay. Your favorite New York City restaurant. My favorite New York City restaurant. Oh my God, this is so hard. I know. I'm sorry. You can tell me too. I would say Huda. I would say Habibi and Huda. Okay. Awesome. I like those restaurants. Yeah, both Habibi and Huda are my favorite. Your favorite New York City bakery? Madonia. Madonia is in the Bronx. It is an amazing bakery. It's an Albanian, Italian bakery. The best olive bread in the world. Oh, I've been there before.

28:40Simple ingredients. It's incredible. It's incredible. It's mind-blowing. And the staff is so wonderful. It smells. I don't know. You've smelled it when you walk in there, right? It kind of like hits you all at once, I would say. And it smells so fresh and so warm. It's like, I love that place now. Like, it is so good. And the desserts and the chocolates are good. It's like not too sweet. I could talk about that bakery forever. Next time in the Bronx, we have to go, I think. Please. And I'll take you to the coffee shop too, next door. It's like my favorite too, in the Bronx. Your go-to bodega snack?

29:15Oreos. I love Oreo cookies. And now closed restaurant that you wish you could bring back. Lalito. Geraldo Gonzalez is a chef there. And it was amazing. It was like a Mexican restaurant with like plant forward foods. Yeah. They also would play. I can't remember what the song in the bathroom. Waiting for tonight. Waiting for tonight on a loop every time you go in the bathroom. So good. Oh, so you've been there. You know what I'm talking about. Oh, I would always be like late coming back to the dinner table because I would just be like washing my hands. I was like vibing. It was so good. And I think they had a kale salad there that the girls are still talking about.

29:54Yeah. It was. That's me. I'm the girls. Yeah. So good. Love that restaurant. Wish it would come back. Okay. Two more. Yes. Your favorite cookbook. Favorite cookbook. Probably my dad's cookbook that he hasn't released yet. Oh, my God. Okay. I'm manifesting that that gets released. Yeah. He's definitely going to make a cookbook. What is my favorite cookbook? I guess I don't. Let's say your dad's one because I want that to come out. Yeah. Okay. Let's say my dad's cookbook. And finally, like a fictional food scene in like a movie or TV show or a book that you wish that you could eat in real life. A fictional food scene?

30:33Yeah. Like something that I saw on TV. Yeah. Or in a movie or in a book. That I would like to go eat at. Yeah. A part of me wants to go back to Lady and the Tramp and. Have the spaghetti and the book? Have the spaghetti and meatballs in that Italian restaurant. Yeah. And just live that life. Well, you get one end of the pasta and I'll get the other. And I don't know. That was such an iconic dinner scene. Yeah. It looks delicious also. It looks so good. That's always going to be ingrained in my head. Yeah. Well, I love that. And I really love getting the chance to speak with you. Thank you for coming on the show.

31:10Oh, thank you so much, Eliza. I really appreciate it.

31:22All right, Eliza, we are here to talk about our favorite meals of the year. I think we have done a lot of travel. We've done a lot of eating. We've talked a lot about it on Three Things and on this show, but we're going to do a healthy segment, a healthy segment, a hearty segment about some of our favorite meals of the year. And for ground rules, we were talking off mic, these aren't new restaurants. We're not doing like the best new. These are restaurant visits. Some of them are very historical that we just loved. And some of them are new restaurants that we sought out because they opened. We heard good things about it.

31:58Some of them I just happened to walk into. So I think there's something about it that felt fresh and worth talking about, even if they've been open for a while. I love that. Why don't you kick it off and we can kind of go a little round robin. Yeah, we can do round robin. I am in a funny position to get to talk about it because I got to write an article for Taste that was about the year in restaurants here in New York, which was a very kind of personal take on the year in restaurants. Something that I wrote about in the piece that I think you probably relate to is just like how many openings there are, especially in a city like New York and how some of the places I've really wanted to go to.

32:31I haven't been able to fight off a reservation for things like that. But one new restaurant that opened this year that I really liked is Strange Delight. in Fort Greene, which is a part of my larger neighborhood. I'm also friends with Himal Whaley, who's one of the chefs who opened it. But that's not why I like it as a restaurant. I just think the food is so delicious. And if you want to kind of go in on seafood, there's no better New Orleans style oyster bar in the city. And something that I noticed when I was there is that I'm not the only person that feels this way. Spike Lee is a big fan of the restaurant.